


not cruel, only truthful

by xshe



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3697364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xshe/pseuds/xshe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Come back, abomination</i>, he'd screamed, inhuman and frantic. <i>You made me do this.</i></p><p>Anders understands that better than anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not cruel, only truthful

He's out of breath. He can't run anymore, especially not with these wounds.

Sebastian's arrow sticks starkly from his unarmored chest, and another through his shoulders. _Come back, abomination_ , he'd screamed, inhuman and frantic. _You made me do this_.

Anders understands that better than anyone.

He's alone, now, and it's uncannily quiet in his head. Vengeance has gone from him, slunk back to the fade. Self preserving to the last, but Anders is glad that he won't be the death of yet another he'd once thought of as a friend.

He stumbles, sags against a tree and listens to himself choke on his own blood from a million miles away. He's dying. Anders wishes that he could have been happy, absurdly, despite it all, despite knowing that hapiness was never something he measured the value of his life in. Action, initiative, execution, and everything else fell by the wayside. His name fits him, he thinks, not for the first time.

The arrow hurts, and he reaches to try and snap it clean, but his hands are weak as a child's and he can do nothing but dangle limply. _Never ask anyone to do what you won't do yourself_ , Karl said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling tight. It hurts, his face still hurts, and he's never been able to find a way to think of him in a way that makes it hurt any less. He'd be proud, Anders hopes.

Their dream was achieved. A conclave at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, where mages would be represented as equals with the Templars. The world would listen. They'd scorched the earth, burned and froze and ripped to make their voices heard, and they won. They would be listened to. That's all Anders had ever wanted.

He was done.

He hears the twigs snap and the brush crunch under Sebastian's boots, and leans his head back to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Plath's Mirror [ link to it in its entirety ](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bharath2/poemoftheweek/111112.html)
> 
> [also posted to my tumblr: neosolas](http://hawkegirl1993.tumblr.com/post/115706390144/not-cruel-only-truthful-summary-come-back)


End file.
